


Gratitude

by Steals_Thyme (Liodain)



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Crimebusters Era, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Sexual Repression, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-04
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain/pseuds/Steals_Thyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rorschach was never one to leave Dan hanging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> Got some editing/rewriting June 2015. Original can still be found [here](http://steals-thyme.livejournal.com/tag/%2Bfic:%20gratitude).

Stupid.

It is stupid to get split up like this.

Rorschach hits the pavement at a dead sprint, his breath condensing on the inside of his mask. A rookie mistake, no more forgivable and a hundred times more dangerous for the fact that they _are_ rookies. The impact of his feet on asphalt jars his knees and shins, and he can feel the cold sweat under his uniform as he whips through the alleyways.

Stupid. Stupid. Where are you? 

He's not panicking, has a tight control on himself, but there is a critical urgency spurring him on, setting his punishing pace.

Too easily goaded, lured away from his partner's back by juvenile insults. Should have kept his guard up, kept one eye on Nite Owl. He could have floored the punks quickly, but their taunts had touched a nerve he didn't know was exposed and he wanted to make them pay for it. Should have taken them down fast, because Nite Owl had his hands full, and they are both green enough that--

Left here, left again. Past the dilapidated doorway with peeling red paint, splashing through inky puddles, fans of broken glass crunching under the soles of his boots. He knows these streets like he knows his own face; here's where they were separated. Only one way, straight on here, past the abandoned tenements, then right. They can't have gone much further—

They—

Rorschach stops abruptly, ducks back into the shadows at the mouth of the alleyway. His knees and lungs scream in protest, he doubles over just to—

Just to catch his breath. He swallows, hard, straightens up. Makes himself look.

His legs feel like water. He galvanizes himself and surges into the throng of Knot Tops circling Nite Owl, takes out two of them before the rest scatter, discarding their weapons in their wake.

Rorschach takes a tentative step towards his partner, already bracing himself for the worst, already fighting the swell of grief. Outnumbered and alone, they did this to him.

He clenches his fists, cold fury prickling over his skin, displacing the despair. 

Nite Owl hangs, hoisted from a fire escape by his cape. It's a grotesque parody of flight, not at all like that of the birds he is so fond of. His goggles are on the ground below him, crushed. There's blood on them, and as Rorschach watches, a patter of droplets fall from Nite Owl's suspended body.

He looks like a human punching-bag.

Rorschach forces himself forward, stripping a glove off. They did not have Nite Owl to play with for long, but he will not let himself hope. Not until--

He curls his fingers around Nite Owl's wrist, and swallows down on the wave of relief when he detects a stuttering pulse. No time for that, now. Priority is to get him down, and get him safe. Dawn is close, graying out the sky. 

He knows where Nite Owl lives, has been invited back after patrol on many occasions. He took the man up on his offer once; he knows he's too far away to get them back before the city begins to stir. His apartment is closer. The idea makes his skin crawl with discomfort, but he is out of options.

Working swiftly at the cape, he tears the seams and carefully lowers his partner to slump over his shoulder. His legs almost buckle under his weight, body drained from physical and emotional exertion, adrenaline and relief leaving him shaky and weak.

*

Getting him up the fire escape is a trial, and Rorschach is increasingly concerned that he will be spotted in the dawn light, halfway up a fire escape with a mask in haul. He hauls Nite Owl onto his sill, climbs over him to drag him the rest of the way through. His heart is pounding hard in his chest. Tonight has been a very bad night.

He sets Nite Owl down on his cot, lamenting briefly the scant comfort of the mattress. It's the floor for him this morning, if he bothers sleeping at all. 

The denizens of his tenement building are waking, already a dawn chorus of slamming and screaming, resonating through the walls. He pays them no heed, relegates them to insignificant background noise. He needs to listen to his partner.

Nite Owl's breathing is shallow; expected, considering the circumstances. Steady, though, and not wet. No punctured lung. Good. There's a rainbow of bruises developing, visible through the shredded spandex of his uniform. It looks like he was hit with a baseball bat. Likely has at least one cracked rib

A lot of blood. Not all his, Rorschach notes with some satisfaction.

Two fingers broken on his left hand, one on his right. Left ankle swelling up. Several deep gashes on his arms; defensive wounds. Rorschach continues his assessment with as much detachment as he can, a clinical litany to quell his anger.

Nite Owl's face is bruised and lacerated and ingrained with gravel.

Wrath threatens to melt Rorschach's dispassion, roiling in his gut. He clenches his fists, has to stand and pace around his room just to bear it. There will be vengeance tonight.

Rorschach grabs at his clothes, flings aside his fedora and trench and pinstripe jacket. He hesitates over his mask. He feels unsafe wearing it in this building, but would likely feel worse bare-faced, with it possible that Nite Owl could wake at any point. It must stay on. He rolls it up over his nose instead. 

Grabbing a washcloth and bowl of water, he kneels at his partner's side. His meager cache of medical supplies are under his bed; he fishes them out.

Time becomes transient as he fixes Nite Owl, the shadows traveling across his floor in Fibonacci squares the only measure of time. He carefully cuts away the spandex that's stuck to his skin, teases the sheared fibers out of his wounds, bathes them with his facecloth. Splints his fingers, wraps them tightly with gauze. Sinks stitches into his arm.

He is as hesitant to remove Nite Owl's cowl as he was his own mask, but he needs to suture his chin. Rorschach takes care to make the stitches neat. He doesn't want it to scar. He doesn't stop to consider why.

Nite Owl almost surfaces as Rorschach tends to his battered ribs, briefly roused by the pain. His eyes remain closed, jitter behind the lids. A low groan escapes his split lips and Rorschach sucks in a breath, but he doesn't wake. 

Rorschach smooths the sweaty hair back from Nite Owl's forehead, then pauses, surprised at his own gesture. Borne of guilt, or shame?

Tired. Just tired.

Hauling his only chair over to the bedside, Rorschach naps, shoulders hunched and hands tucked firmly under his arms.

*

Rorschach passes the next night a frenzied blur of fists and bones, retribution meted unflinchingly. Vengeance has form and he is etched in black and white, and he will make the city scream.

*

When he returns to his apartment, Nite Owl is sitting on the cot, running his fingers over the tidy row of stitches in his arm. The rising sun traces golden contours around his shoulders and ignites filaments of his hair. He looks up, and the depth of gratitude on his face is horrifying.


	2. Seams

They slide from the shadows with more menace than he'd afforded them when he had Rorschach at his side. They're all leather and grease and hefted weaponry, and keen edges glinting under the yellow and green neon, dripping light like poisoned daggers. 

He deflects them with ease at first, but he's running on adrenaline and increasingly sharp slivers of panic; the night has reeled out immeasurably and he is already tiring. A knife scrapes along the thick leather of his gloves, scores his forearm with sickly wet warmth. He takes out one Knot Top with a fist to the throat and snaps the arm of another, but there are still so many and he is only one man.

A kidney punch makes him stagger, and he is ambushed by grabbing hands that yank at his cloak and pull his goggles, dragging them painfully over his face. They mock and ridicule and howl as they lynch him with his own costume, imbecilic taunts punctuated with strikes to his ribs and steel to his flesh, again and again...

* 

Dan is awoken by his own choked breathing, limbs tensed and screaming in protest. It takes several moments for his heart to cease its palpitations and the nauseating colors to stop flashing across his vision. His head pounds like the world's most glorious hangover.

This is not his bedroom, he realizes, swollen eyes struggling to focus on the cracks that spider over the ceiling, indistinct and shifting in the grayness of early morning light. Nebulous recollections nudge at him, of quiet hands and a stinging needle. He flexes his hands experimentally, feels the resistant tug of sutures in the skin of his arm. 

Rorschach.

Dan experiences some jarring dissonance as his brain catches up. This must be Rorschach's home.

He considers for a moment. No, not home, just where he lives. Regardless, a frisson of excitement temporarily dilutes his pain. In the short time he's known him, Rorschach has been a cipher, bluntly deflecting Dan's attempts to know him and shrugging off his small talk with non-committal noises. 

Finding himself in a room full of Rorschach's possessions is like a cryptographer's wet dream.

Or maybe not, Dan thinks, as he spies a familiar mug perched atop a stack of papers. A cartoon owl motif stares back at him.

Girding himself against an inevitable riot of pain, Dan hauls himself upright and swings his feet onto the floor. He groans to himself as his body protests; every square inch of him aches bone-deep. He can barely tell which parts of him are genuinely wounded. Only twenty, and he's getting too old for this.

He is aware that he is mostly naked, and unmasked. He's not sure how he feels about that. Or, for that matter, about Rorschach doing that to him.

The room is becoming lighter by increments, the grimness of the surroundings gradually resolving as the shadows disperse. There are speckles of black mold on the faded, peeling wallpaper and salty residue left by rising damp. That goes some way to explaining the smell, at least. The floor is gritty under his feet, mostly bare boards, but there's some sparse covering of carpet; he can see two or three different patterns Frankensteined together. There's a heap of rumpled clothes in one corner, the pile crowned with several dog-eared paperbacks and a half-empty soda bottle.

He's interrupted from his observations by the squeak and clatter of the window being opened. Rorschach levers himself through, gloves leaving bloody smears on the cracked pane. He glances at Dan as he paces across the room, taking off his fedora and turning it over in his hands a few times before placing it on his dresser.

"Good that you're awake," he says, finally.

Dan offers a reassuring smile, feels the pull of damaged skin on his lips. "Yeah," he replies, voice hoarse and cracking. "I owe you—"

"No," Rorschach interrupts him, with a vehemence that makes Dan flinch. "No debt, Nite Owl." He picks his hat back up, jams it on his head. Hands in pockets, then out again, fists clenched then unclenched. His discomfiture is tangible, exacerbated by whatever violence he has wrought while out on patrol.

Dan raises his hands, unconsciously placating. His smile becomes more like a grimace, awkwardly aware that he is the main cause of Rorschach's aggravation. The silence is strung out between them, a thread of tension that Dan doesn't quite know how to break.

Rorschach snaps it for him, striding back to the window and hopping up onto the sill. He jabs a finger in Dan's direction. "Have things to do today. Stay here and rest. Don't answer the door." He pauses, hanging halfway out of the window. "And don't touch anything."

*

Dan drifts in and out of consciousness for a while, before the repeated strains of _(Don't Fear) The Reaper_ from the apartment next door begin to drive him crazy. It's like some kind of sadistic time loop; he has no idea if he's even slept at all, always roused by the same song. Somewhere below, a heated argument has turned into noisy sex. He gives up all pretense of napping, and grabs a couple of the papers from the stack next to the bed.

The New Frontiersman. Dan snorts. That doesn't surprise him in the slightest. Nor do the cryptic notes scrawled in the margins in a crabbed, childlike hand. He leafs through a few pages of right-wing frothing before trying to read without his glasses brings on a headache. He returns the papers to their pile, careful to put them back in the same order he found them.

There's a dearth of personal effects in Rorschach's room, Dan discovers with something like disappointment. The stubble clinging to the greasy tideline in the washbasin is ginger, but that's something he already knew. Rorschach may have only peeled his mask up once or twice, but Dan was paying attention. The straight razor is more interesting. It's a curious, if not unnerving anachronism; it suits Rorschach in a way that Dan can't describe.

A couple of filthy dishes are on the scored wooden table. Swiped from his kitchen, Dan notes with a roll of his eyes. The top half of his Nite Owl uniform is draped over the back of the chair; Dan lifts it, shakes it out. He pushes his fingers through the lacerated fabric.

"Will fix that for you." Gravelly tones from the window.

Dan drops his mauled costume with a start. "Christ, Rorschach, you nearly— is there something wrong with your front door?"

"Walk in and out of my apartment in uniform?" Rorschach tilts his head, ink crashing and turning. "Thought you might have suffered a concussion. Not doing much to change my mind."

Dan laughs sheepishly, moves in a zombie-shuffle to sit on the mattress. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be surprised. I had a rough night, last night."

"Not last night," Rorschach says, hauling a scuffed leather holdall onto the table. "Night before. I made last night rough for your friends."

"Oh, wow," Dan mutters. That uneasy silence again, like he's supposed to say something. Or Rorschach is trying to. Instead, he asks, "Is— is that my bag?"

Rorschach makes an affirmative noise. "Scoped out your basement. Hope you don't mind. Picked up some supplies."

'Supplies' prove to be the contents of Dan's kitchen cupboards, and some scraps of fabric and sewing paraphernalia that Rorschach's found god knows where. He accepts the plate of tuna that Rorschach proffers, the flakes of fish still in a neat cylinder from the tin. Dan eats it with his fingers.

While Dan eats, Rorschach shrugs out of his trench and suit jacket and lies Nite Owl's uniform out on the table. Mask creased up over his nose, he holds a fan of pins in his mouth, delicately nestled between his lips. Dan watches in fascination as he deftly pulls rent cloth together, skillfully patching up the worst damage with new fabric.

"You're good at that," Dan says, trying to keep a note of incredulity from his voice. "Where did you learn...?

Rorschach spits the pins onto the table, pulls out a skein of cotton and snaps it between his teeth. He threads a needle on his first attempt. "Work in the garment district. For my day job."

Dan boggles at him, unable to reconcile this facet of Rorschach with the finger-breaking and vitriolic ranting. "Nah," he says, and laughs, sure of the joke. His fingers go to his chin, nonetheless, tracing the bump of sutures. "You did a good job, though. Thank you."

"Shouldn't have had to, Nite Owl." Rorschach jabs with the needle, his mouth a stiff line. "Should have had your back."

He feels weird being called that when he's not wearing Nite Owl's skin. "Dan," he says. "My name's Dan."

Rorschach stares at him, aghast.

*

Dan loses track of the days quickly, thrown off by an irregular sleep pattern and Rorschach's erratic comings and goings. He estimates that it's taken almost four days to move fluidly again, without having to clench his teeth and make pathetic little noises.

Donning his repaired uniform, he follows Rorschach out of the window. He's not fit for patrol yet, but he has to get out of Rorschach's hair. Besides, he's bored stupid and sick of subsisting on cold tinned goods. He misses his own bed, misses having clean sheets, misses not finding sugar cubes under the pillow and unidentifiable stains on the mattress. A shower would be nice, too.

His feet have barely touched the ground before Rorschach is on him, hands fisted into the front of his uniform. Dan's back slams against the wall, bones rattling at the impact, his injuries screaming.

"Don't come back here," Rorschach growls, his face inches from Dan's. "Don't."

Dan can only nod.

Gloved fingertips flit over Dan's face, tracing the red seam on his chin.


	3. Touch

Something in the gutter catches Dan's eye; a familiar curve of lacquered gunmetal, fragments of reflective glass. He nudges the object with the toe of his boot and then bends to pick it up, holding it carefully between finger and thumb. The rain has long since sluiced his blood from the sidewalk, but some things remain; tangible evidence like ruined equipment, and more ephemeral abstractions that claw hungrily at the edges of his sleep.

Above his head, the wind lifts tatters of fabric, further entangling it in the metal struts of a fire escape.

He should be back out on the streets by now. Almost a month on, his injuries are no longer a hindrance, no longer an excuse, and God knows he's restless. Why else this daytime reconnaissance, walking through filthy alleyways in civilian guise? It's hardly the adrenaline-sharpened dance of his nocturnal crimefighting, but a dangerous game nonetheless.

Dan tucks the broken goggles into the inside pocket of his overcoat and continues to walk, patrolling a circuit around the neighborhood; a holding pattern that unconsciously winds closer to, but never quite reaches, a particular tenement block.

*

It takes days for his bed to stop smelling like Daniel. 

Rorschach has no spare sheets, so he airs them, hanging them outside his window to flutter lazily against the brickwork. Even after that, he still finds an occasional strand of dark hair coiled into a fold of bedding; something that makes him inexplicably angry, makes him physically shake.

He sleeps on the floor, hard boards numbing him to the bone and ensuring his rest is not intruded upon by unwelcome dreams.

*

Rorschach wakes at dusk, the city clamoring below him. He stalks his usual route for an hour or so, but he's been too long solo, and eventually his traitorous feet brings him to Nite Owl's basement. Nite Owl himself is poring intently over a set of blueprints under an anglepoise, tongue caught between his teeth, humming as he concentrates.

He looks up as Rorschach clears his throat, apprehension flitting across his face before he breaks into a genuine smile.

Rorschach offers a nod by way of greeting, fists thrust to the bottom of his trench coat pockets. He's mildly uncomfortable that he's not in uniform; he is not accustomed to Nite Owl being Daniel. 

He wanders over to bump elbows with his partner, inspecting the scrolls of schemata. The papers are weighted at each corner with oily machine parts and an empty coffee mug. "Hrm. Keeping busy, I see."

Nite Owl polishes his lenses on the hem of his sweater vest. Placing the glasses back on his nose, he spares a puzzled glance at where their arms touch, lines briefly creasing his brow. "Yeah, I decided my uniform could do with an upgrade. Gave me something to do while I was laid up." He grins widely. "Hey, let me show you."

Rorschach nods. Nite Owl's boyish enthusiasm for gadgetry is often irritating, but he is curious to see what kind of improvements he's made. He always thought the outfit decidedly impractical; even street clothes would offer more protection from a flashing blade than the gray spandex. Not to mention, it looked ridiculous.

Verging on indecent; clinging fabric shifting over toned muscle, emphasizing every cord and sinew. It had felt decadent under his rough fingers, as he eased it away from lacerated skin.

Rorschach bites down on the inside of his cheek, hard enough to taste blood.

"I just finished with the new goggles. Had a bit of trouble configuring the head-up display, I had to go dig my old pair out of a gutter downtown to see if I could salvage the chipset." Nite Owl's voice is muffled as he pulls the sweater over his head. "It's been so long since I first made them, I'd forgotten about the, the— ah, never mind, you're not interested in that."

Unbuttoning his shirt, Nite Owl gestures with his head to where the old suit hangs, ensconced among memorabilia and unfinished projects. "It's a bit more complex— actually, it's a lot more complex than that old thing. Might take me a while to get into it."

Rorschach turns his back as Nite Owl divests himself of his outer layers without apparent embarrassment. He pretends to run a cursory inspection of Archie's hull. Nite Owl's reflection staccatos over the dull surface as he suits up, amorphous shapes distorted by the ship's dented exterior. Rorschach's hands are hot, sweating in the depths of his pockets. He draws them out slowly and places them on the metal, feeling the cool of the steel seep through the leather, his palms laid flat over the dancing reflections.

Bare skin laid on rumpled sheets, his sheets on his bed. Not fair how much that bothered him, how invasive it seemed, and he stomps down on that tendril of resentment before it gets a choke hold. It was Nite Owl. His partner, Nite Owl. He needed his help, and it's not his fault and Rorschach didn't want to touch that bare skin but he had to. He was so warm, feverish almost.

"Hey, Rorschach? Could you give me a hand?"

Rorschach jerks his hands away from Archie, dark pools spreading across his cheeks, feathered edges like a bird taking flight. Nite Owl is grappling with a rigid bronze garment that resembles a sleeved ballistic vest. "It fastens on my hip there, it's a little stiff. It'll get worn in with use though, and practice. Just snap it closed like— yeah, like that, thanks."

If Rorschach's fingers linger on his partner's side a moment longer than strictly necessary, Nite Owl seems to pay it no heed.

Nite Owl pulls the cowl over his head. It covers half of his face even without the goggles, hides the pale scar on his chin. He strikes an exaggeratedly heroic pose, fists on hips, chest puffed out. "So, what do you think?"

It is impressive, Rorschach has to admit. More intimidating than the previous incarnation, more sophisticated in design. Sleek. "This is good, Nite Owl. Looks like it offers much more protection than your old suit."

Nite Owl beams. "Absolutely. It's a polycarbonate-kevlar blend scale mail. Heavier than spandex but worth the trade off, I think. It could turn a knife and I'd not even notice."

A minor wound compared to what the rest of his body had endured, but it incensed him the most, that sliver of red marring his chin. He had thumbed it gently as if to wipe it away, willing the skin to knit itself and leave no reminder.

Rorschach reaches out to trail his fingers over the burnished, feather-like plates, an intimation that makes Dan raise his eyebrows, unseen beneath his cowl. "So, uh." He clears his throat. "Patrol? Let's try this baby out."

Rorschach nods, returns his hands to their pockets.

*

Dan is laughing in borderline panic by the time they return to the Nest, hiccuping out of him between his panting breaths. "Oh Jesus, get it off, get it off, get it off..."

He pulls at the cowl and the latches on his armor, stripping down to his underwear. Rivulets of sweat track over his body, heavy droplets spattering on the concrete between his feet. "Oh, thank God," he gasps. "Going to have to figure out a way to ventilate better."

He shakes his head vigorously, spraying perspiration in an arc and plastering his hair to his forehead. Rorschach makes an indistinct noise, pointedly wiping the front of his trench. Dan raises his hands apologetically. "Sorry."

Without warning, Rorschach pitches forward and grasps Dan's wrists, turning his hands palm-down to inspect the healed wounds on his forearms. Dan recoils on impulse, jerking backwards with enough force to unbalance himself. He staggers against the wall, harsh scrape of brick on his naked back.

"What are you— Christ, what the hell is up with you, Rorschach?" Dan blinks in agitation; without his goggles or glasses his partner is an indistinct blur, haloed by the dim lighting of his workshop. 

"Don't know what you mean." Even without his glasses, Dan can see Rorschach tense up. 

Enough. He's had enough. All night they have been literally side by side, Rorschach constantly shooting him oblique glances. Dan's feeling unsettled by that, and by the surreptitious touches, a brief brush of fingers to his back or shoulder, too frequent to be accidental.

"You barely left my side all night. I mean, we might as well have been handcuffed together. And what's with all the—"

"I had your back," Rorschach interrupts, fiercely. "All night. Your new uniform is unfamiliar and puts you at risk. It's what partners are for, Daniel."

Dan lets out a shaky sigh, tiny seeds of suspicion suddenly blossoming. Thorny realization, clear in hindsight: Rorschach repairing his old uniform, spitting out cagey retorts, rebuffing all attempts at thanks. A thumb to his chin, so fleeting he might have imagined it.

There's a long, terse silence, Dan breaks out in goosebumps as the sweat evaporates from his skin. Something settles low and heavy in his stomach when he realizes Rorschach called him by his real name.

"It wasn't your fault," he says, pushing himself away from the wall. The words come all at once, laced with his dismay. "I got stupid, thought I could handle it. Didn't back off when I had the chance, when I realized things were getting out of control. That's not your fault, Rorschach."

Rorschach ducks his head, as though to hide his face under the brim of his fedora. His voice is taut, maybe forced from between clenched teeth. "You were lucky. Pure chance I got there in time. They could have killed you. Probably meant to. I though you were— didn't know if I was too— I should have been there. Not a game, this. The stakes are too high to gamble like that."

His hands reach out again, grasp Dan's shoulders firmly. He can feel tremors quaking through Rorschach's body. It is deeply alarming; in the time Dan has known him, the man has held his emotions on an extremely tight leash.

It takes the impact of the brick wall at his back before it occurs to Dan that Rorschach is likely the sort to channel any emotion into anger. Rorschach's gloved fingers dig into his shoulders and leave fading white marks on his flushed skin.

"Hey, hey...!" Dan grabs at Rorschach's elbows, intending to lever him away, somehow pulling him to his chest instead. His hat tips askew then falls to the floor in the process. Dan instinctively tightens his arms around Rorschach and twists his hands into the back of his trench, restraining more than embracing. "Hey. It's okay. It's okay."

Distantly, Dan wonders why he hadn't been floored already.

Rorschach became quiescent for a moment, hands relaxing on Dan's shoulders, head tucked under his chin. It's strangely intimate. Rorschach's ragged breathing warms his throat, even through the mask. Dan makes a conscious effort to still his hands, to refrain from stroking the man's back. He can only imagine Rorschach's response to being comforted like a child.

"Okay?" Dan murmurs.

Rorschach grunts, roughly extricates himself then smooths down the front of his trench coat.

"Rorschach," Dan presses, bending to pick up his hat.

"Fine, Nite Owl." He jerks his hat from Dan's hands, jams it on his head. His mask dances maniacally through a range of pseudo-expressions. "Okay."

Nite Owl again. Dan nods, understanding that it's as much as he's going to get. "I, uh— I need to take a shower. Do you want a cup of coffee, or...?"

Rorschach shifts from foot to foot. Even with the mask, Dan can tell he's not looking at him. Dan doesn't blame him; Nite Owl's secret identity is proving to be pretty damn flimsy lately— first Dan's face, then his name, now an invitation into his home. 

"Coffee would be good."

Dan exhales, letting his head fall back against the brick. Rorschach spares him an unreadable look, then makes his way to the kitchen; the set of his shoulders as rigid as ever, but his hands free of his pockets.


	4. Drown

Pipes clank in the walls of the brownstone, the sonorous rumble of the boiler disrupting the stillness of the kitchen. Weak morning light is diffusing into the room, playing across the withered leaves of a neglected houseplant and along the rim of a saucepan, upended on the draining rack. Motes of dust hung suspended like flakes of gold.

Rorschach nurses a mug of viscous black coffee, fingertips warming against the ceramic. If Daniel were to walk into his kitchen right now, he'd find a stranger sitting at his table; rawboned and haggard, an inkblot face next to his left hand, folded carefully. For the first time he can remember, Rorschach felt claustrophobic under the fabric, the roiling patterns fraying his temper and making it difficult to gather his thoughts.

He breathes deeply, noisily exhaling through his lips, trying to settle the lurching in his stomach. Things aren't so clear anymore. The past few weeks have shaken him more than he'd willingly admit, ragged emotions prickling at him from the back of his head and deep in his gut; foreign and uncomfortable and with barbed edges that hook themselves into every thought. He nudges at their periphery in a fit of masochism and feel his insides drop away, like they do when Archimedes hits a pocket of turbulence. As if he were in free-fall.

There are framed pictures on Daniel's wall. Birds, of course. His skin looks gray in the reflection of the glass, stark shadows beneath his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks.

He feels sick.

Upstairs, the muted patter of water ceases, pipes shrieking their last before falling silent. Rorschach snags his face and slides it to the edge of the table. He makes a V, stretching the fabric between two fingers and watching the black spread over white, white over black, neither diluting the other. It should be that simple. Had been, for a long time. Disturbing how suddenly the status quo had shifted.

Footfalls, creaking stairs. For a fleeting moment—a moment that makes his heart thud heavily and raises the hair on the back of his neck—he considers laying himself bare. He could abandon his mask, just this once, and let Daniel see his fault lines. Let him pry at them, deepen them even as he would try to fix them. He could bleed out over his hands.

He pulls the latex over his head roughly, self-disgust burning like bile in the back of his throat.

*

Eyes closed, Dan tilts his head up under the shower head, sluicing away the sweat and grime of the night's patrol. The water beats out a tattoo over his shoulders and back, pressure easing his aching muscles.

With restless inevitability, his mind turns to his partner. The thread of something that is pulled taut between them is knotted with all kinds of signals that Dan doesn't have the first clue how to interpret, and it is getting to him. God, he'd actually snapped at the man over something that should have been almost touching. Coming from him, anyway.

So Rorschach was guilty that Dan had taken a beating. Okay. He'd figured that out, eventually. He can understand that. He's felt it himself, whenever he's had to stitch up the worst of Rorschach's wounds.

The sudden physical neediness though, that's just—

Dan sighs, lathering the soap. His hands glide over his stomach and hips, and with an unheralded stab of lust that darkens the edges of his vision, he imagines it's Rorschach's hands on him, filthy leather tracking through the suds; a visceral, tactile fantasy. His rough, hungry mouth at his neck, teeth and latex scraping his skin, hot breath on his throat.

Oh.

Oh God, that's just fucked up.

_But you're still thinking about it, aren't you?_

He ups the shower temperature to a notch below unbearable, scalds his skin pink under the steaming water.

*

Dan shuffles into the kitchen, clad in sweatpants and a shapeless t-shirt, toweling his damp hair. His bare feet leave rapidly evaporating halos of moisture on the tile. Rorschach is still here, trench thrown over the back of a chair, mask bunched across his nose, palms laid flat to the tabletop. Dan leans against the sink unit and cast around, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't immediately betray him.

He decides on something excruciatingly mundane, since everything else ha can think of is fraught with danger. "How's the coffee?" he asks.

"Hrnh." Rorschach looks down at the mug as if he'd only just noticed it, picks it up and swirls the contents. "Cold."

"Want a fresh cup?"

There's a noise like fingernails on chalkboard as Rorschach pushes the chair back. "No thanks. I should be going. Could do with some sleep." He elbows Dan aside to empty the mug into the sink, watching the dark liquid drain into the plughole, coffee grounds residue pooling on the stainless steel.

"Stay," Dan says, not sure if it's a request or a demand, but definitely pure impulse. "I can take the couch."

The blots on his partner's face shift in mercurial patterns, and Dan finds he doesn't have to read anything into them. Rorschach's mouth is pressed into an unsteady line, face twitching.

"Don't look at me that way." Something in Rorschach's voice cracks, jagged syllables that are meant for nothing but danger, nothing but a threat, rendered helpless. "Daniel."

He expects a struggle, a violent recoil and likely blood. Rorschach's gloved hands fisting painfully in his hair seems right, though not the sour breath against his mouth—but then he's being kissed, Rorschach is kissing him; a tentative, almost chaste press of his lips that breaks Dan's heart when he realizes the man has only the vaguest idea of what he's doing.

He finds the lapels of Rorschach's trench, gently tugs him closer, spreading warmth as he parts his lips and tastes stale, over-sweet coffee. Rorschach chokes against Dan's mouth, shaking hands untangling from Dan's hair and coming to rest on his shoulders, clinging desperately then trying to pull away, keen edge of panic in his movements.

Dan holds him, pressed cheek to cheek as Rorschach gasps like a drowning man, surfacing for the last time.


End file.
